It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

I’m the only person you’ve ever met who has read Longfellow.

What makes a song last is real content from a mind that is thinking a little bit harder about certain things. A lot of artists don’t really think that hard.

After you finish a book, you know, you’re dead. But no one knows you’re dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

A solution built by an artist serves the artist more than the solution the capitalist comes up with.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.

Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with with your self-esteem. They’re no good at all.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

I don’t know if I officially proofread my father’s book, but I read it. I did get some conception of grammar in general from that.

Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment.

I think I’ve committed the one really bad English crime, which is I’ve risen above my station. I was supposed to be a pop star, and suddenly I’m claiming that I’m an artist of some kind.

I like definitive things.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

Yes, there is a terrible moral in ‚Dorian Gray‘ – a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

Digital technology allows us a much larger scope to tell stories that were pretty much the grounds of the literary media.

There’s something about music that encourages people to want to know more about the person that made it, and where it was recorded, what year it was done, what they were listening to, and all this kind of stuff. There’s something that invites all this obsessive behavior.

Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gift one person can give another.

I love Wiz Khalifa.

Don’t be humble… you’re not that great.

Miss a meal if you have to, but don’t miss a book.

A fit body gives you confidence. And there’s nothing more impressive than a great attitude, which you can wear on your sleeve. But you’ll have to remember the difference between being rude and being confident.

The one thing that ‚Via Dolorosa‘ has is no opinions. To me, curiosity is 50 times as valuable as opinion.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

You have to understand that people that are hurting are going to criticize.

I want kids to know: Don’t wait for somebody to come along and tell you you’re special. Because that may never happen.

Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.

I cannot live without books.

There is no body of theory or significant body of relevant information, beyond the comprehension of the layman, which makes policy immune from criticism.

I don’t measure my success anymore by the Grammys. I can’t because I’ll just end up crushed.

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.

Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.

It doesn’t matter who likes you or doesn’t like you, all that matters is that God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you.

Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.

Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We’ve been so busy damning ourselves for years. We’ve done it all, and yet we don’t take credit for it.

Never be ashamed! There’s some who’ll hold it against you, but they’re not worth bothering with.

Give a critic an inch, he’ll write a play.

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can’t imagine going through that. If you know that’s going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I’d rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

I think people take me as seriously as I want them to. They take me as seriously as I take myself – let’s put it that way.

After the first International Days of Protest in October, 1965, Senator Mansfield criticized the ‚sense of utter irresponsibility‘ shown by the demonstrators.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries or the way she combs her hair.

Don’t ever criticize yourself. Don’t go around all day long thinking, ‚I’m unattractive, I’m slow, I’m not as smart as my brother.‘ God wasn’t having a bad day when he made you… If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbour. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.

Whether I’m at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I’m looking forward to reading.

What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.

My mother used to tell me man gives the award, God gives the reward. I don’t need another plaque.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.

‚Classic.‘ A book which people praise and don’t read.

Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.

If you’re talking to a man who wouldn’t fight with you under any circumstances whatsoever, then you’re talking to someone for whom you have absolutely no respect.

There would be no Sherlock Holmes if it were not for serial publication.

A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.

No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they’re pretty, even if they aren’t.

I like to have strong opinions with nothing to back them up with besides my primal sincerity. I like sincerity. I lack sincerity.

I don’t care if people think I am an overactor, as long as they enjoy what I do. People who think that would call Van Gogh an overpainter.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.